No. IX.

GEORGE WISHART THE MARTYR.

Calderwood states, that "Mr. George Wishart was a gentleman of the house of Pittarrow."—(Hist. vol. i. p. 185.) And in the Wodrow Miscellany, in an introductory notice, I have said, "He was born in the early part of the 16th century, and is believed to have been a younger son of James Wishart of Pittaro, who was admitted Justice Clerk, in December 1513, and continued till between 1520 and 1521."—(vol. i. p. 5.) Further inquiries have failed in ascertaining535 this point; and it must have been through some collateral branch if any such relationship existed. A note of various early charters relating to the Wisharts of Pittaro, was most obligingly communicated by Patrick Chalmers of Auldbar, Esq.; and several others are contained in the Register of the Great Seal; but the want of space, and their not serving to throw any light upon the Martyr's parentage, causes me to omit such notices. There is a fine old portrait, not unworthy of Holbein, said to be of George Wishart, in the possession of Archibald Wishart, Esq., W.S., Edinburgh, which bears the date, m.d.xliii. Ætat. 30. If this portrait can be identified, the date would fix his birth to the year 1513. But his early history and education are quite unknown. The facts discovered relating to his history may briefly be stated.

1538. Wishart had been employed as master of a school in Montrose; but being summoned by John Hepburn, Bishop of Brechin, on a charge of heresy, for teaching his scholars the Greek New Testament, he fled to England. See Petrie's History of the Catholick Church, part 2, p. 182. Hague 1662, folio.

1539. He was at Bristol, preaching against the worship and mediation of the Virgin Mary; but he was led to make a public recantation, and burnt his faggot in the Church of St. Nicholas in that city, in token of his abjuration. It was probably immediately after this humiliating act that he went abroad.

1542. He appears to have remained in Germany and Switzerland till after the death of James the Fifth. He mentions in his Examination, (see supra, page 159,) a conversation he had with a Jew, while sailing on the Rhine. About the same time he translated "The Confession of Faith of the Churches of Switzerland," which was printed a year or two after his death, and which has been reprinted in the Wodrow Miscellany, vol. i. pp. 1-23.

1543. This year he was residing us a member of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, according to the interesting account of his habits and acquirements by his pupil Emery Tylney, which is preserved in Foxe's Martyrology.

1544, or in the following year, he returned to Scotland; and he continued to preach in different parts of the country; at Montrose, Dundee, and in Ayrshire, and subsequently at Leith, and in East-Lothian.

1546. On the 16th of January he was apprehended at Ormiston, carried prisoner first to Edinburgh, and then to St. Andrews. His536 trial was on the 28th of February, and his execution on the 1st of March: (see supra, page 144.) Three months later Cardinal Beaton was assassinated.

In a work like the present, it is desirable to avoid all controversial remarks; but I hope to be excused in offering a few words in regard to what has been considered a serious charge against George Wishart.

The precise date of Wishart's return to Scotland is very doubtful. Knox, (supra, page 125,) places it in 1544, but joins this with an explanation which might carry it back to July 1543, and with the defeat of the Governor, which belongs to a later period. Mr. Tytler, (Hist. vol. v. p. 343,) says, "From the time of his arrival in the summer of 1543, for more than two years Wishart appears to have remained in Scotland, protected by the barons who were then in the interest of Henry, and who favoured the doctrines of the Reformation." Yet nevertheless, according to Mr. Tytler, and later authorities, he was employed as a messenger in May 1544, conveying letters from Crichton of Brunstone to the Earl of Hertford at Newcastle, and from thence, with other letters, to Henry the Eighth, in relation to a projected scheme devised by the Laird of Brunstone for the assassination of Cardinal Beaton; and after having had an interview with the King at Greenwich, returning first to Newcastle, and then to Scotland. This employment—which has been held up as a notable discovery—proceeds upon the fact of "a Scotishman, called Wyshart," being mentioned as the bearer of the letters referred to; and the Laird of Brunstone having been Wishart's "great friend and protector," in 1546, hence it is concluded that the person employed was George Wishart the Martyr. Among the Wisharts of that time the name of George was not peculiar to him. George Wischart was one of the bailies of Dundee, 3d May 1560, and for several years previously; and in the Protocol book of Thomas Ireland, notary public in Dundee, belonging to that borough, I observed the copy of a deed, in which "Georgius Wischart, frater-germanus Joannis Wischart de Pettarrow," was one of the procurators in a matter concerning "Georgius Wischart, armiger Crucis regis Galliæ," 14th June 1565.

Now, in reply to the above argument, I beg to remark, that there is no certain evidence of George Wishart having returned to Scotland earlier than 1544 or 1545; that if the name of George Wishart had been specified in the letters, there were other persons of that name who might equally have been employed in such services; and that if it had been ascertained beyond all doubt that he possessed a full know537ledge of the plots against Beaton devised by Crichton of Brunstone, even then, according to the terms of the Earl of Hertford's letter, and confirmed by the letter in reply from the English Council, the attempt was to be confined to the arrestment of the Cardinal, while passing through Fife—the proposal of sleeing him, having been suggested only as an alternative, in case of necessity.

But to say nothing of the uncongenial nature of the employment, to a man such as described by his devoted pupil Emery Tylney, who had been under his tuition at Cambridge, for twelve months, in 1543, it may further be urged,—

1. That Wishart had no occasion to entertain a personal animosity to the Cardinal; and that being denounced, or put to the horn, and liable to summary arrestment and execution, he could not have undertaken the task at such a time, of carrying letters and messages between the conspirators.

2. That the plots against Beaton being well known, even to the Cardinal himself, if Wishart had in any way been concerned in them, it would unquestionably have formed a leading accusation against him in his trial,—but no allusion to such a charge was ever whispered.

And lastly,—That the actual enterprise, by which the Castle of St. Andrews was taken, and the Cardinal murdered, on the 29th of May, was in a great measure a scheme hastily arranged and executed, mainly in revenge of the Martyr's own fate, and altogether unconnected and uninfluenced by any former plots devised by Crichton of Brunstone, but which have been employed to implicate the irreproachable character of George Wishart.